Frequently Asked Questions

What is Repeace?

Repeace is an alternative applied strategy of empowerment for the 99%, for all international expressions of activism/social change (movements, groups, cooperatives, organizations).

Occupy, IdleNoMore, Indignados, Podemos, Anonymous, are all intuitive concepts of empowerment. They reflect on something we can all relate to ("We occupy the streets until we see change"; "We are not idle anymore"; "We're outraged at this irresponsible system"; "WE CAN, and will reclaim democracy"; "We are all anonynous citizens, part of one collective").

Similarly, Repeace is an intuitive identification strategy based on the profoundly powerful analogy that all activists realize peace because they fight battles aimed at relieving their own fears. This analogy hasn't been yet used to unite, inspire and empower the 99%

Repeace as an alternative strategy because we believe that the key to victory and reclamation of our corrupted institutions doesn't hide in a new idea, but a different way of thinking. In other words, we are convinced that the current revolution has already all the power it needs to strike at the root of corruption. However, in order to build the missing cohesion, it needs to know how to appeal to individuals and nations with different backgrounds and challenges. The 99% needed a way to transcend dangerous protests and reduntant petitions, in order to exercise social pressure on our establishment, that is clearly not interested in listening to us.

We are convinced that the true purpose of social activism is peace. This changes everything about peace and also about our assumptions on social change. As of today, activism is competitive, disorganized, divided. Its small successes are insufficient to motivate human beings to participate in these times of deep crisis and keep them engaged. Repeace wants to use a set of international platforms to build a new global community of activism behind a different thinking (responsibility prevents conflicts), and a different approach to social change (activism is the peace process, all protests and initaitives are "peace movements"). Activism is not just inefficient at delivering long lasting political impact, but is also being framed by the establishment with all possible slurs.

We wish to help humanity escape those slurs, unite online, create a new measured consensus and new solutions for the 99%. The purpose of activism is to relieve fears, remove conflicts (not just the focus of antiwar advocacy groups. This argument is used as marketing strategy, not unlike the 1% does, to rebrand an idea that can only work based on cooperation. We merged the power behind the ideas of activism and peace in one, because we understand how they belong together. If you haven't seen our latest Repeace video release, please take a few minutes to watch it:

Repeace is an international-, non partisan-, non ideological-, responsibility- (anti corruption) campaign on a replicable platform. All existing progressive movements and online communities that have led to Occupy, or have been spurn out of Occupy, are invited to participate and solve the urgent need of building globa cohesion and solidarity.

Is repeace an organization or a political movement?

No. Activism doesn't need another organization. What's missing in activism is cohesion, unity. Activism needs to understand where the shared purpose is and how to convey that knowledge to help all humans see where the shared purpose is. Activists are overwhelmed, divided, pulled in thousands of directions. Repeace is defined as a campaign of responsibility and self empowerment that pulls activists away from the danger of street protests, and organizes their voices not as grievances, complaints, petitions, not as a vote, but behind 3 commitments. Such commitments may appear to be obvious, already universally accepted by all activists. However, the establishment clearly ignores them.

1. I will support businesses that focus on sustainable, local products and services, not on buying influence.2. I will support politicians who are accountable to me, not to corporations.3. I will support countries that promote and defend freedom of expression.

Those 3 protests unite not only a divided citizenry but also all progressive organizations dedicated to social empowerment. The approach "peace is the absence of fear" and the notion that "all activists realize peace" might be the missing factor to unite all progressive Facebook communities and movements committed to social empowerment. Despite the large amount of activism, organizations, movements and initiatives are currently competing rather than cooperating.
If the global population of activists wants to succeed, we have to stop trying to build additional entities and movements, and find the invisible bond that is already there.

What does repeace stand for?

Repeace stands for Realize peace through responsible behavior, and approaches peace through the lens of fear and not through the widespread dogma of War & Peace which has been inefficient for over 50 years. The prefix "RE" implies a recurrence of the ideal of peace. We believe that humanity has been given the opportunity to understand the ideal of peace several times in history, pushed by all kinds of social conflicts. Each time it failed to appreciate that the correct definition to define peace is through the lens of fear. Peace as the "Absence of Fear" allows all causes and activists to see how they are already connected, without knowing it.

What's the relationship between activism and pacifism?

Activism has always been a crowd, a multitude of causes motivated by anger and fear, but it never got to be an international cohesive collective, a community. The lack of cohesion in activism is a seemingly impossible problem to solve, because we live in a world divided by languages, borders, races, religions, and hundreds of causes.

The secret to a global unified will, the secret of global solidarity hides in understanding what prevents us from being a collective of agents of change. Before we think of organizing people around specific goals, we need to understand how and what ties us all together. Humans have indadvertedly framed the concept of Peace to "Peace Movement" as the antiwar movement during the 1970s. It was not the first time that the American Civil Rights Movement was confronted with social conflicts resulting from the oppression by a corrupted Oligarchy. However, by framing peace as "the absence of war" the world of activism missed the opportunity of achieving national and future universal cohesion.

Peace is the purpose of all people struggling and fighting to remove social conflicts, not just "wars" or their resulting nuclear weapons. In this seemingly small detail lies the secret to global unity. The "Trigger of Revolt," much sought after by Chris Hedges is believed to hide in a simple alternative definition of peace. Better thinking is also better "design."

What are the most revolutionary ideas about Repeace?

The most revolutionary ideas behind repeace deal with the reflection that all activists realize peace, and that the involuntary action of framing peace inside the antiwar and nuclear disarmament advocacy movements have prevented activists to see how their shared purpose has been peace all along.

Consequently, the revolution you are experiencing is a revolution of activism, an evolutionary step that is directed inward. We believe that before we can relcaim the system from corruption, we need to be in sync as a team and that means across borders, languages, different cultures, races and of course, causes.

The revolutionary act of truth telling that we have usually used to expose the lies of the elites, the 1%, is now an act of truth inside our erratic team of 99%. The truth is that conflicts are relative and that the own worries with their own survival and protection of little niches of influence, has literally prevented organizations to cooperate. Activism is marked by cross side suppression and competition, not cooperation.

Exposing this fact is like blowing a whistle, and telling to the 99%, how we can free ourselves from this problem by shifting our thinking, without need of violence or protests.

"REsist peacefully, Occupy WS protests filled with Peace iconography, Strong and direct references to the former Peace movement, with the expanded desire for freedom of expression, dissent, equality, justice, sustainability. The signs could not be any clearer.

Does RE-peace stand for a repeat of the peace movement?

We challenge what the peace movement is or the use it was made of the term "peace movement". We think that the U.S. anti-Vietnam war and the coalition of war veterans and nuclear disarmament advocates were a chapter of both expressions of a wider idea of Non-violent dissent which is different than the vision of a world without armed conflicts or nuclear weapons. The ideal of peace is much too important to stuck it to an event in time and a specific coalition of causes. All causes and organizations are trying to releive conflicts, and all activists are trying to releive their own fears.

We believe that social change, "activism" is a peace movement for many, stronger arguemnts than the simple pursuit of a world without wars or free of nuclear weapons. Understanding ideals is a profoundly instrumental process ofsocial empowerment, and we wish to prove that to humanity with repeace.com

Is the Repeace logo replacing the peace symbol?

No. Ideals like peace, justice, health, freedom are defined by conditions inside our society that lead to those invisible dimensions. We believe that a normal human being equipped with compassion and sense of responsibility will take the right decisions and act ethically by default.

In a society that is running irresponsibly, led by the ego, the focus must be on responsibility. it's responsibility that promotes peace because responsible, compassionate behavior prevents conflicts.

Eventually people like and do whatever they want to symbols, and projects their own beliefs and hopes. This one was designed with a sense of militancy, and power, to give more power to activists (peaceful?) and stand for the values reflected in the 3 pledges: transparncy, sustainability, support of local economies, freedom of dissent.

In a 2009 Interview with Laura Flanders, in response to the phenomenon of the Tea-party, author Naomi Klein said that the American Left needed a new militant, radical political movement that would become irresistible. Activism is already for the most part a peaceful movement of self determination (militant), but is not cohesive and not irresistible because too many people claim to know what's needed and have opinions on what has to be changed. How about we simply adopt the fact that this revolution is a revolution of responsibility and use a symbol to brand it. What's more irresistible than a product these days?

Many would think that it's such an absurd idea to capture the attention of the masses with a brand and market the revolution as a product, but the reality is that the percentage of people who don't give a damn about social change, the ones alienated from the political debate far exceed the ones who do!

What are the 3 repeace commitments ?

Peace is an ideal we pursue together and we must have ways to promote peace that go past being kind and positive, compassionate and loving, when our governments owned by corporate masters are throwing us into misery and deeper inequalities.

People want to reclaim their failed and unjust institutions but with the growing anger that boils in their society and a police state ready to counter them in a militarized way, there are not many alternatives to peaceful protests. Senator Sanders suggests about waging a moral, a political war against the billionaires, but that is more or less what the revolutionaries in all nations are already doing. There are not many ways to unite all progressive activists behind a movement or an organization, and when they are present, they are easily divided by ideology and politics as usual, fear and doubts.

Repeace wants to defeat the evil inside our institutions peacefully, without using any protests, by turning all the anger and the resentment against the establishment into 3 straightforward, proactive and uniting online protests.

For that purpose, Repeace crafted the 3 pledges and placed them inside a design that implies that the 3 pledges are the demands measured at 3 separate protests:

These are the 3 Repeace commitmwnts/pledges

1. I will support businesses that focus on sustainable, local products and services, not on buying influence. 2. I will support politicians who are accountable to me, not to private interests. 3. I will support countries that promote and defend freedom of expression.

Instead of protesting and expecting the big and powerful businesses and government to change something they have no intention of changing, Repeace turns the demands into pledges, which include the inherent demands made at most protests in three simple statements. Whether you go to the next protests against WS, against the NDAA, GMOs, Fracking, for Universal Healthcare or in support of Bradley Manning or Snowden, you might as well click on the 3 Repeace counters, add your voice and know that IS THERE TO STAY. Because no matter whether the government may or may not do what you expect it to do, your voice is inside those 3 protests and millions upon millions of Occupy brothers and sisters or Anons can join you in those 3 pledges.

You may agree that these are things that the whole 99% can easily stand behind. Usually people see pledges and think "whatever", but not all pledges have the underlying power that these three have. The immediate goals of the Repeace pledges and protests are:

Unite all activists behind the notion that all social activism realizes peace.

Mobilize the apathetic and cynic who has given up hope.

Empower and unite a very divided society in the common cause of fighting institutionalized corruption in a positive, proactive way.

Unite all citizens as a non partisan force and let all current and new representatives know that people want transparency and accountability without compromises.

Unite all people as customers and let the institution of business (private sector) know what WE want, by creating a measurable demand for sustainable, quality products, and most important to demand them to back off lobbying for influence in government and make these businesses back their words up with facts.

Unite all humans as a new global purchase power underscoring that freedom of expression is non negotiable.

Provide an incentive for businesses and politicians to comply with the demand (offer of support)

When people go out at a protest or march against Monsanto, against corruption or against Fracking, they are hoping to get noticed by the media, represented in the news, echoed on social media and able to put pressure on our representatives. What they wish to achieve as a whole is to have the power of holding accountable businesses, politicians, government and media for letting them down on issues we shouldn't even have to protest. The problem is that there are too many causes, and people have been forced to pick a cause and give it all their time (if they have any!). Until we can appreciate the dynamics of the revolution and how to "unite our laser beams" this global movement is and will keep being a populist anti corruption movement that doesn't know how to address corruption efficiently and is therefore divided into dozen of causes.

This global populist movement needs to have the core message spelled out simply, it needs to embrace an ideal, it needs to agree on a few basic unifying actions and agreements, and have a clear direction toward which it's moving. In the USA the core agreements that are shared by most social activists are that people want money out of the political discourse, that as long as people organize peacefully, they want to have the freedom to dissent and communicate without being spied upon by the government. People want that businesses sell us organic, non GMO products, produced in a sustainable manner and mindful of supporting local economies. People have the right to know what's in their food and get proper labeling of what's not organic.

We all realize peace! ... peace for students, citizens, protesters, uninsured, food, animals, land, oceans, air. This is the idea that unites us. Repeace.com can mobilize all these great people with the anti GMOs, the Anti Fracking, the Anti Citizen United protesters, etc. in 3 minutes. People can start to find out how many they are, the 99%, by clicking on the 3 online protests (and add their name also to the global protest). How many people will be pursuing the Repeace goal to get money out of politics worldwide, beginning in the U.S.? How many are for economic justice and a future of accountability? Now people can find out by clicking, sharing, wearing Repeace symbols, waving the 3 fingers, or spreading the idea on signs.

I took the commitments. Now what?

The commitments are made by activists to make to materialize cohesion. Cohesion, in activism, also known as solidarity and is that sense of belonging to a new community that shares the same vision and lives by the same values. The 3 pledges are a step towards building something that was missing, and allow this revolution to become what it's obviously always been, a revolution of responsibility.

When writing about "Revolution" Hanna Arendt said that one instrumental component of an efficient revolution is the joy of working together on something new. This joy was palpable during the protests of Egypt in 201. A year later, it was felt across Occupy camps across the USA and many international cities. But since then it has been missing.

Activists are used to arrive on a new website and expect an organization, with plenty of content and staff, actions and local chapters. We're not there yet and our purpose is not to compete with organizations like Greenpeace, Transparency, PETA, Amnesty International, but to literally bring them to the table and get them to make a commitment to responsibility as well.

If we wish to see all of our institutions become transparent, accountable, compassionate and sustainable, we need to make them play as a team. Now they aren't. They are competing against each other and activists are becoming increasingly frustrated.

Why is it so significant to measure the commitments so predominantly?

There are many reasons why the 3 commitments/pledges are so central to the idea of Repeace. Measuring them is the key strategy to materialize the solidarity, the cohesion that is currently missing.

The most important reason is to help people unite. The 3 commitments go beyond nationality and political differences. They appeal not only to the politically conscious citizens, but also to the cynical, the apatheitc and the ones who are now simply distracted.

Anybody who has taken some basic courses in economics understands the concept of demand and offer. The counts are not only allowing citizens to express: “We’re sick of our corrupted system”, the physical measuring them are not primarily a vote or a petition, but a true market demand to the two pillar of corruption, businesses and government. This approach is a significant change from traditional protests because the message, the narrative is controlled by the 99%, regardless how the 1% reacts.

Are you a non-profit organization?

Repeace is 6 years old and dedicated to empowering the 99% in any way we can via the self evident front page. The vision is global and the empowerment goes to every nation. We wish to build a network, a service, that could become a platform for real debate and free speech, so we incorporated as LLC. We haven't had any revenues in 6 years becaue we think that the internet, as a tool of instantaneous communication and our vision are enough to empower you already with the concept we designed.

You won't find any "donate" button on this page, and we're currently not rasisng any substantial funds from selling shirts. Clearly, no project can make it without funding at some point, but we don't think that adding another NGOs to the 2.3M organizations and charities in the U.S. alone is a wise choice.

People already have little money to give to the charities they love to support. We don't believe they need another organization asking for money they don't have to begin with.

We will think of creative ways to crowdfund this vision, when someone will begin to appreciate the fact that no existing vision of change is able to produce uniformity without conformity.

How will Repeace produce lasting social change?

By building a new kind of social leverage based on your demand.

Activists are conditioned to land to a weblink, an organization, a petition, an organized movement of intellectuals, who have built a new "entity." Organizations are basically entities of inside the Civil Society. They gather your grievances and lobby our authorities when their action (or inaction) creates conflicts.

For the most part it all ends up in smoke. Organizations are infiltrated, fought against. When they become movements they get co-opted by the political process. PACs become Super-pacs and cater to the old duality that keeps you in the Status quo. That is not radical change.

Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, the Civil Rights Movement, are first of all about creating openings in a society that doesn't work. People start organizing in new ways if they are allowed the space to cooperate and there is consensus. Currently, the 99% doesn't have consensus, unity, cohesion. Occupy has been dissolved and has moved to online venues. A reliable source has said to us: "There is no centralized authority or secretariat of Occupy and no one is authorized to speak in its name. It's highly fragmented, disorganized."

Whether you wish to see long lasting political change, climate actions and solutions, access to universal healthcare or education, change is not "just political" and repeace doesn't even have to be specifically political to impact deep social transformation. Rather the contrary. It's by making you realize that it's the cohesion and solidarity among the millions of existing organizations that will re-align our values and define our shared purpose, that will manifest the invisible power you desperately seek. It's exactly by not being framed as an organization but as the idea that binds activists, that you have a better chance at reclaiming power.

A Swiss national artist can't and won't influence US or EU politics with an organization. It's simply unrealistic and impractical, besides being highly controversial. However, with a simple idea, that all activists are repeacers, with a symbol of "Responsibility promotes Peace", and by collecting the consensus of hundreds of millions of human beings online, behind 3 simple statements, he could.

As simple as it sounds, tens of millions of activists taking the commitments in each nation and worldwide as one community, will already be the basis for new future reforms, and not just for the U.S. or the U.K., Icealnd or Germany. However just as you never know what happens after a huge protest or a petition you signed, we can't guarantee what our unified voices behind Repeace will be able to do better than Tahrir Square or Occupy.

It will all depend on how the commitment of activists will be followed by consistent action, and if those who so passionately have imagined peace for over 50 years, can imagine something more practical... responsibility.

The quotes on the main page Memes are incorrect. Why?

MLK, JFK, Bertrand Russels, Malcom X and many other public figures or revolutionists who wanted to "change the world" made their statements in different times, in different contexts. The essence of their ideas and beliefs is totally reflected by our vision. The main ideas that competition in activism is a problem, that the idea that peace is somehow the opposite of wars or that any idea can produce seemingly impossible things are reflected and respected in our "extrapolations".

This was also very much a desire to restart the debate on what we thing are the many things that simply don't work or have stopped making sense. We hope that you will have a debate with your friends, and go seek what these public figures of the past intended, when they wrote or spoke their words.

What is the "Corporate Entities" commitment for?

(Pledge button of front page for corporate entities)

While the people can give their voice in the 3 main commitments/pledges, the growing demand will encourage corporate entities businesses and representatives inside any institutin to make a commitment to responsibility. When a Corporation makes a commitment, it will be prompted to fill out a form. In this form they can agree to commit to accountability and sign:

"Our Company hereby agrees to enter in an informal agreement to realize peace/REPEACE with our clients/members and all human beings. We look forward to show that our commitment to accountability will be reflected in concrete steps, including efforts to produce sustainably, responsibly and supportive of local economies."

Each national Repeace platform will feature the name and links of the companies that have agreed and feature them. We realize that an informal commitment is not much, but the fact is that it is better than nothing and probably already a lot to ask.

if you wish to see the list of every business and every organization, politician or movement, make sure you and your friends do your part by making your commitment with the 3 pledges (or join globally if you are outside the U.S.)

What is the Representatives commitment for ?

(Pledge button of front page for political representatives)

While the people can give their voice in the 3 main protests/pledges, the growing demand will encourage U.S. businesses and new or existing political representatives to take an informal pledge to you and make a commitment to a future of more accountability. When a representative of any instituton ororganiation will click on the button, he/she will be prompted to fill out a form. In this form he/she can agree to make this commitment and sign:

"I (Representative's Name, Last Name) hereby agree to enter in an informal agreement to realize peace/REPEACE with my local, state and national constituents or followers. I understand what conflict of interest means, and agree that this problem prevents all our institutions to serve humanity efficiently. I look forward to proving that my commitment will be followed by concrete steps to reject any private influence in my work or service of the collective."

The Repeace platform will feature the name and links of the representatives who have committed and will feature them in articles that will be used to encourage others to follow suit, and motivate more people to grow the public demand and transform this revolution in a revolution of responsibility.

Does Repeace also see the 1% as the root of our problems?

The 1% has always been eager to protect its privileges and increase its wealth, no matter what cost, human or natural. There's nothing new in the psychopathology of the 1%, their bankrupted morality or lack of empathy. The smartest thinkers, the elites inside social activism, expert revolutionist know from other examples that you can't demand a sick system to fix itself, just like you can't expect a drug addict to quit without help, wothout a strategy of intervention.

The 1% may very well be twisted and inhumane. But today is no different than during ancient Rome, ancient Egypt or during the time of the French Monarchy who produced extreme debt and outrageous inequalities. Slaves, starving peasants or agonizing poor have repeatedly proven that the human spirit will always resist and revolt from any form of persistent oppression, and that eventually, hunger will turn crowds into beasts. In thusands of years, with all the evidence of the clear manipulations of public opinion and use of fear to divide and conquer us, the world of activism has never been able to get over its differences for the sake of the greater good and figure out a way to stick together and make the basics work.

So who's to blame here? The sheer obsession of corrupted leaders and egotistical individuals inside the 99% has steadily prevented progress. Each group, organization, movement has gone as fast as it has come and been dissolved. So the answer is that the problem, at this point is not the 1% so much, but us, the 99%.

The paralysis in the evolution of human consciousness lies in the stubborn, blind unwillingness or inability of organizations to see past their differences, for the sake of the wellbeing of the whole.

How does repeace relate to the Nonprofit sector?

Humanity doesn't need another NGO to reorganize NGOs... it needs a leading thought. Activist don't need another organization to delegate their grievances, they need empowerment, and they need to be heard!

The Civil Society, Social change, "Activism," no matter how you wish to call this institution, is the one that caters the idea of "a better world" to human beings who wish to participate in the civic debate. In a normal person, naturally gifted with empathy, is not hard to find a natural drive to be part of the decision processes around him/her. When compassion is missing, people usually have a sense of duty, a responsibility to act.

Since this institution is the only one we have, no matter to what form it has grown, we feel entitled to offer a critique, because repeace provides an approach and a platform, that the NGO sector desperately needs. The cohesion is inside the idea that peace is the purpose of social change, that charities, organizations, independent communities of self reliance and mutual help are relieving fears, realizing peace. That is the challenging novelty that repeace offers. To see how millions of organizations can come together behind a simple thought and to help them find solidarity behind 3 national commitments on a website with 3 counters, doesn't take a new organization, but a new way of thinking.